Or at least the nerdiest:

Etch A Sketch Clock

“A moment I’ve been dreading. George (Vice President George H.W. Bush) brought his ne’er-do-well son around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida (future Gov. Jeb Bush). The one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I’ll call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they’ll hire him as a contributing editor or something. That looks like easy work.”

– Ronald Reagan in his recently published diaries, May 17, 1986

Edit: I’ve been alerted that this is actually a case of satire. I guess the real shame is that our President is such that something like this would be taken at face value.

Best. Rocket. Man. Ever.

Well, maybe the coolest ad I have seen lately.  Everyone who knows me knows that I love Guinness. But this new Guinness ad would kick ass even if it were for Coors Light (ugh). Here is the link to the article, and just click the picture to start the advert.

Or not…

It’s October, and that means one thing in Southern California: Santa Ana winds.  They started in earnest yesterday, and SoCal is filled with brush fires.

Malibu, home of movie stars & multi-million dollar houses? Torched.  San Diego? Two big fires (so far).   Right now at my place it smells like smoke & there is a bit of ash falling (and we’re 40 miles west of the southern-most fire).   The Ye Olde Google Maps of the fires is here.

And here’s some sobering news from our local rag (the site has been getting hammered. If you want to check it out, don’t be surprised if it times out.):

“The fires ravaging San Diego County are expected to get much worse before they get better.

Over the next two days, city and county officials expect the fires will eclipse the damage caused by the 2003 Cedar fire, the worst wildfire on record in California.

“This fire will probably be the worst this county has ever seen – worse than the Cedar fire,” Sheriff Bill Kolender said.

The weather forecast is equally grim. Overnight, gusting winds sparked new fires and spread smoke and ash throughout the county. Thousands of people have been forced from their homes, and scores of roads and schools have been closed.

Help from other fire agencies is on the way, but firefighters are battling severe Santa Ana winds that will ultimately determine the fires’ paths.”

In December, the United Nations took up a resolution calling for the abolition of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for children and young teenagers. The vote was 185 to 1.

Guess who the 1 was?

The United States the lone dissenter. Indeed, the United States stands alone in the world in convicting young adolescents as adults and sentencing them to live out their lives in prison. According to a new report, there are 73 Americans serving such sentences for crimes they committed at 13 or 14.

Link

Maybe you should be more subtle until you gain control of the nukes?

A robot cannon began wildly and autonomously firing its huge gun in South Africa last Friday, killing 9 soldiers and wounding 14. The Oerlikon GDF-005 antiaircraft gun suddenly began uncontrollably shooting as it swung back and forth, spraying hundreds of high-explosive 35mm cannon shells all over the place. The crazed robot’s handlers are still trying to figure out what sort of software bug would cause such mayhem.

Link

Ladies & Gents, allow me to present MillerCoors.  Just what we need, most of the world’s crappy beers under one roof.

SABMilller and the Molson Coors Brewing Company said Tuesday that they would combine their United States brewery operations in a joint venture.

The venture is expected to have $6.6 billion in annual revenue and will allow the two companies to “compete more effectively in the increasingly competitive U.S. marketplace.”

The two companies would each have 50 percent voting rights in the new entity, to be called MillerCoors. But SABMiller would have a majority of the economic interest, with 58 percent, compared with Molson Coors’s 42 percent.

SAB, which is based in London, is the second-largest brewer in the United States and Molson is the third, The Financial Times reported. Anheuser-Busch dominates the United States market with a 50 percent market share.

It was just a baby anyway.